The Storycatcher

by Hite, Ann

  “You can’t. It’s now or never.” The sunlight hit the diamond on the little cross and sparkled. “I’m going to have a baby. He doesn’t know.” Amelia smiled.

  “I’ll go, but first I got to finish something.”

  She smiled so big I thought her mouth had to hurt. Her perfume smelled of honeysuckles blooming. “We leave at the end of the month.” She stood up. “I knew you would do it if I talked to you.”

  “Miss Amelia, how about we not tell him I’m going? I got a feeling that wouldn’t be smart.”

  Her look settled on my shoulders. “I think you’re right. I won’t tell, Armetta. You’re saving my life. But what do I say when he asks about my visit?”

  “Tell him I refused because I’m going down the mountain to work in town.” Evil begot evil.

  “The end of the month, Armetta.” She smiled.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll be all ready by then.”

  March 19, 1870

  My pains started near dark. They cut across my belly like a knife. I thought of making my way to Ma Clark, but I knew I never could. So I worked through those pains on my own. Sometimes I screamed so loud, I was sure someone in the settlement would hear me, but no one came. I was on my own. When the pushing started, I was near out of my mind. How could I get the baby into the world alone? I screamed again.

  “You can do this, Armetta. I’m right here.” Mama’s voice was the sweetest sound I had ever heard. “Squat. Then push with all you have, baby.”

  I did exactly what she said. A horrible pain wrapped around my body, bearing down on me like a knife cutting me in half. This went on for a while, and each time I thought I couldn’t push again, Mama’s voice brought me back. Finally a boy, Lord Jesus, a boy, a fine baby boy came into the world.

  On toward daylight I set out walking to Ma Clark’s. See, I had me a plan. I’d begin a new life with Miss Amelia. I’d make every living day of Pastor Paul Dobbins’s life miserable. I’d protect Miss Amelia. The good pastor would wish he had never crossed me.

  I kept my baby close to me inside my thin coat.

  Ma Clark answered the door before I knocked. “You be messing with fire, Armetta.”

  “I know.”

  Ma Clark knew what she called “root” from her island. She sometimes knew things without a soul telling her. “You can’t go off with that girl. He won’t let you. He be after you if you do.”

  “Yes, ma’am, but I’m going to make him pay. I got a plan.”

  “Revenge is the Lord’s, child.”

  “No, ma’am, it be mine.”

  “You’ll pay for that kind of thinking.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Ma Clark looked at my coat. “What you got hidden?”

  I opened the faded cloth and brought out my baby boy. My heart wanted him so bad I nearly dropped to my knees. But his life wasn’t worth a plug nickel with me. “I be giving him to you.”

  Her face went soft. Ma Clark never could have a baby. “Child.” She took him. Her face went blank for a minute. Then her eyes cleared. “He’ll grow up to be a good man, but his daughter won’t be nothing but trouble. She’ll break my heart with her foolishness. Mary Beth be her name.”

  “How you know all that?”

  “Just do. It’s in the touch. It runs all through my peoples. I be Geechee from Sapelo Island. Your mama, Liza, was from Savannah. She never understood me and Emmaline’s root from the island.”

  “Who is Emmaline?”

  “She was my sister, kind of, like your boy will be my son. She’s been dead for years now. Died in the walk. During the War Between the States, the master on Sapelo, along with a couple of masters in Darien, decided they would save their property, slaves, by walking them all the way to Macon. Many of them died. But she still walks the coast, a place called the Ridge. Her spirit will never rest ’cause she’s a storycatcher.”

  “A what?” I snorted.

  “That’s someone who untangles the wrongs plaguing others. Some people be born that way, some are only burdened after they die. You never want to be a storycatcher, Armetta. You’ll spend your life giving things up for other people.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I left that island and never saw Emmaline again. The last thing she said to me before I left was ‘I love you, Celestia.’ And I believed her.”

  “Here.” I pushed my memory box at her. “This here is my box. One day he might want to know about me.”

  “You don’t worry none on this boy. His daddy won’t even know I’m here with him. This baby will grow to be a strong man. No evil will touch him. I’ll give him the box when the time comes.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” My stomach hurt so bad I thought I’d die.

  Then I walked back to the cemetery ’cause Miss Amelia would be ready soon.

  March 29, 1870

  The day before it was time to leave, I was thinking on how I could just stay on my mountain with my boy.

  Pastor Paul walked up beside me. “The angel looks nice with all the daffodils blooming around her.” His words was like a big spoonful of honey.

  I didn’t look up at him ’cause I was purely afraid of how I’d act. “It be my job.”

  “Really, Armetta? I heard you had a new job.”

  I figured Amelia had done gone and told him. “I don’t know what you mean.” I pulled weeds around the headstones. The heat from him worked up my back, but I still didn’t bother looking.

  “I heard you were a mother.”

  Now, Mama had taught me not to lie, but there were times when a colored girl didn’t have no choice; plus he was lying, ’cause nobody knew about my baby but Ma Clark, and she sure wouldn’t tell. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I ain’t married.” I knew the last words would crawl under his skin.

  “Don’t be uppity with me, girl.” His words curled around the peaceful graveyard like black, oily smoke.

  I moved away from him without speaking. If I looked at him, he’d read the hate and loss in my eyes.

  “I have something for you.”

  Again the fool was trying to trick me. “I don’t have no baby. Lord help.”

  “Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain, Armetta.”

  This was when I looked at him. “It ain’t a crime for a colored girl to talk to God.”

  His eyes flashed with meanness, but he stayed calm. “Me and Amelia want you to have this no matter whether you’re telling the truth about the baby or not. We want to leave you something since we are going away.” He held out his hand, and there was Miss Amelia’s cross. “Amelia is very upset because you won’t be going with us. She insisted. She can’t come to see you. She’s too fragile right now. You hurt her so bad when you refused to come with us.”

  He was a fool and a liar. I only stared at the little cross.

  “Take it. Don’t tell me you’re going to refuse my, our, gift. I’m not heartless, Armetta. You had my child. I just need to know where he or she is.”

  “There ain’t no child. I told you that. I’m not a liar, like you.” All the hate I owned came out in them words. “So I don’t need no gift. Go leave me alone. I have no link to you.” I stood right there and stared him down.

  He made two steps toward me. “Don’t lie to me.” He grabbed my wrists. The power in his hands could break the bones like twigs. “I want to know where the child is.” The cross, wound in his fingers, was cutting into my skin.

  “There ain’t no child.” I said this nice and quiet. Why did he want the baby so bad? It sure wasn’t love.

  He let go and walked behind me, and put the cross around my neck, hooking it in one smooth move. “Now, that looks nice.” He came close to my ear. I could smell him, the sweat, the pine trees. “You just better stay away from Amelia. We’re leaving soon. No seeing her.”

  “I ain’t got a reason to see her,” I lied. “I just want you and her to go.”

  He pushed me hard and I fell on the ground.

  I grabbed me a rock in my hand.
/>   “Stay away from her.” He turned and left. I should have came up behind him and hit him on the head.

  The necklace was hot on my neck. That man had something way up his sleeve, and it wasn’t good for me either. That afternoon the rain came. It was so hard and long I figured I didn’t have to worry over the good pastor ’cause I was going to float down the mountain. Dragonfly River was so high it worked around my shed and came in the door and cracks around the floor. There was some kind of doom in the air. The cross hung around my neck. If I lost it, he’d blame me for stealing, and Miss Amelia might believe him. Nobody could be trusted.

  Miss Amelia showed up two hours later. She never saw the cross ’cause it was stuck down my blouse. “Armetta, we’re leaving in the morning.” She looked so young, too young. Never ever would she understand his kind of bad.

  “Let’s stay, Miss Amelia. Make him go without us.”

  “Paul won’t have it and Mama would throw a fit.”

  I let my breath out.

  “Be out behind the house at seven tomorrow morning. I’ll surprise him then. We have a train to catch.”

  “How am I going to catch a train, Miss Amelia?”

  “I bought you a ticket, silly. I got me some running money hid away. Charley went for me. I swore him to secrecy. He promised.” Charley is a good man but he just drinks too much.

  “Okay.”

  “Be there. Promise?”

  “Yes. I promise, Miss Amelia.”

  “It’s going to be the best garden ever, Armetta.”

  “I know it will, ma’am.”

  * * *

  I been jumping at every little sound tonight. There isn’t a bit of sleeping to be had. I opened the door to the shed and let the chilly air inside. My last night. A wind picked up, and I breathed in the smell of rain. That’s when I saw a barn owl sitting on one of the headstones. Now, some folks thought an owl was a devil sign, but Mama said owls was the messengers. When a person came upon an owl that wasn’t afraid or shy—like the one I saw—it meant the person would be a teller, a soul who brought the truth to those who didn’t hear or see things from the beyond. That barn owl sat right there watching me. A cold chill walked over my head. My life there in the cemetery is fading away, and I know I will leave the baby with the light skin forever. Ma Clark already spun her story about a brother who lived on the Georgia coast. All I can do is pray. The next time I write in the book, I will be in New Orleans. Maybe I will have good things to say.

  I CLOSED THE BOOK. Armetta never wrote another word. Now, how was that story supposed to save anyone? It wasn’t even finished.

  PART NINE

  The Grim Reaper

  June 1939

  “When Death is ready for you, he comes in his hooded cape, and there ain’t a thing you can do.”

  —Ada Lee Tine

  Shelly Parker

  I SEEN DEATH with his black hooded cape walking in the backyard of the Tyson house. I stood on the back step, and the specter walked toward me. I closed my eyes tight. I needed Nada.

  “Shelly,” Ada called from behind me in the kitchen.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Death raised his head and looked right at me. Then he disappeared.

  “What you doing out there?” Ada asked.

  “I need to talk to Nada.”

  “Ain’t you too old for this mess?”

  “I seen something. I need to check on her.”

  “That old woman spirit?” Ada stood behind me.

  “Worse.”

  “What, then?”

  I turned around. “Death. I seen the specter walking in the backyard.”

  “You seen him?”

  “Black cape and all.” I pointed. “Right there.”

  “Hush, child, hush. Talking about him could bring him our way.” She pulled on my arm. “Get in here.”

  In the bright kitchen my thoughts on Death began to settle. “I want to check on Nada.”

  “I know you do, child, but how? We got a phone but does your mama?”

  “No, but the main house has one.”

  “We got to ask Miss Lydia about calling, unless you know the number.”

  My heart sunk. “No, ma’am.”

  She patted my arm and looked out the window into the empty yard. “Your mama’s fine. This be about that quilt. I’m telling you that Miss Faith is something else. Have you looked at that clean room up there? That ain’t normal.”

  “I told you that quilt is bad. Miss Faith is charmed. She ain’t never been clean a day in her life but when she started making that quilt. When things began changing.”

  “Like how? Something ain’t right with her. I think it has something to do with that girl on the marker, the one on her quilt.”

  “Arleen Brown. Maybe.”

  “Ain’t no maybe to it. That Arleen Brown has got a black soul. She be owning Miss Faith.”

  I wasn’t never one to take up for Faith Dobbins, but I found a lot of firsts in Darien. “The real Miss Faith ain’t all bad, Ada.”

  “Then tell me who this Arleen Brown is.”

  “Some old girl back home on the mountain that died a few years back. I don’t know why she’s got Miss Faith other than she’s got unfinished business with the pastor.”

  “What kind of business?” Ada asked.

  I shrugged. “Don’t know that.”

  She looked out the kitchen window one more time and shook off a shiver. “Let’s go get some fresh flowers for Miss Lydia. They be gone ‘exploring’ the town.”

  “You don’t fool me, Ada. You like Miss Lydia.”

  Her face softened. “She be a decent white woman.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” And I realized that’s what she had become since leaving Pastor.

  WE WAS IN THE FRONT yard near the road gathering flowers from the beds. A car went by with a white lady driving—and that wasn’t no big deal—but I had to look twice.

  “What you looking at this time?” Ada asked in a nervous way.

  I shook off the willies. “I thought I knew that white woman, but it can’t be no one from Black Mountain down here. Wouldn’t be no reason.”

  Ada looked at the car. “That be Pastor Harbor’s car. He’s the pastor of the white Episcopal church in Darien. He got him a new wife. She ain’t from here, but I can’t tell you where she’s from. She keeps to herself a lot. She’s young and pretty. Don’t want a bit of help. Does all her work herself.”

  It couldn’t be Nellie Pritchard, the woman I worked for who murdered her husband, but it sure looked like her for a minute. Wouldn’t it be something if Nellie was living right there in Darien? If she only knew I still had my two hundred dollars. If I wanted I could go anywhere ’cause that was a lot of money. It was enough to help me live for a long time. If I wanted I could leave Black Mountain. But Nada would be left all alone. One child running off was enough.

  “Make things right with Will. He be your only brother. And brothers are hard to come by.” Ada looked at me like she had read my last thought.

  The air already felt like a furnace. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Ada stopped what she was doing. “Time ain’t your friend, girl. Clean up how you feel. This ain’t about you. It’s about Will and what happened to make him leave his mama and home. Show him some respect. He’s showed you.”

  I huffed.

  “You think you don’t have to respect him? You got a lot to learn.”

  The old woman spirit was standing near the house. “I got a job for you, girl,” she said.

  “Lordy be,” Ada whispered.

  “You got something to do for me before you go home. Get ready. You understand? You wasn’t protected all these years for nothing.”

  “I can’t do nothing for you, ma’am. I’m not even from here.”

  The old woman laughed. “You be silly. You be perfect because of where you came from and where you going.”

  “Come on, Shelly.” Ada started walking fast.

  “You can’t r
un away from me, Ada Lee,” the old woman called after her.

  Ada kept moving to the back steps of the house.

  “She be afraid of you because of that night,” I said. For some reason the old woman didn’t scare me.

  “That girl’s been through a lot.” Then she looked at me. “I’ll talk to you soon. When we get done, you can go on back home.” And the old woman was gone.

  “Get on back here!” Ada yelled.

  I went to her.

  “She be bad, Shelly. Something terrible going to happen. Get ready. And you be a part of it. What was she talking about protecting you?”

  But I couldn’t speak. Mrs. Dobbins pulled back into the driveway. She was all smiles but she was alone. “Ada, the town is wonderful. I left Faith at the dock looking at the boats.”

  Both me and Ada looked at each other.

  “What she want with boats?”

  Mrs. Dobbins frowned. “That’s a good question. She said she liked looking at them.”

  “I just bet she does.” Ada frowned.

  Maude Tuggle

  ZACH LOOKED UP when I came into the office. “Well, what did you find out?” He put down his pen and took off his wire-frame glasses.

  “I talked to Amanda.”

  “You have my attention.”

  “Amanda said the cross belonged to Charles Dobbins. She’s agreed to talk to you.”

  Zach shook his head. “I should hire you.” He stood. “Come on. We have to go see her now.”

  Life can change in a moment while waiting on a promise to be fulfilled. I never told him about the angel. I never told him about seeing and talking to a ghost. I kept these things tight in my chest. Had I told, maybe things would have turned out different.

  Arleen Brown

  I WATCHED THE MISSUS DRIVE away before I walked down to the dock. The old woman spirit that kept following Shelly around stood off to the side.

  “I’m here to tell you, girl. You need to go back from where you came. That quilt won’t stop a thing ’cause you can’t be the one to use it. Don’t you know that? A spirit can’t harm a soul. We only start the telling of the story and watch, and it don’t matter that you be in that girl’s body. She can’t do a thing you want unless she wants it.” She cocked her head sideways at me and disappeared.